He allowed his mind to run on like this only for as long as it took them to turn the sodden trunk, its limbs flailing in protest at the disturbance.
The sailors backed away, to lay bare the strange doll-like face for the madman on the embankment to see. But when they looked up, they saw that he had already gone.
A strange-looking fellow
‘Do we have any idea who he is?’ asked Porfiry Petrovich with a grunt. The granite pavement pressed sharply against his tender knees: he was crouched on all fours on the embankment of the Winter Canal, beside a mound of sodden matter that had once been a man. Additional stabs of pain danced along his spine, spreading out across his lower back. The smell from the body was unusually foul and fetid. Porfiry felt like he was diving into the heart of a rotting swamp.
The Easter fair in Admiralty Square was in full swing. Porfiry could hear the clash of competing barrel organs, and the roar of the crowd. The sounds were close enough to be distracting.
‘According to Ptitsyn,’ Virginsky enunciated the name distastefully, almost spitting it out, ‘no means of identification were found on the body.’ Virginsky looked down at the corpse with a recriminatory glance, as if he held the dead man to blame for this oversight.
Sergeant Ptitsyn clicked his heels in confirmation. The young policeman had been recently promoted to this rank, and, evidently, transferred to the Admiralty District Police Bureau, which was how he came to be on the scene. He seemed to have grown in confidence with his new position, though he gave the impression of being as eager to please as ever. He was still capable of showing due deference to his superiors.
Porfiry squinted into a blasted hole in the side of the man’s head. ‘It appears that he was shot. In the head. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that he was dead before he entered the water.’
‘Of course, we will need a medical examination to confirm that,’ Virginsky reminded his superior.
‘That goes without saying, Pavel Pavlovich,’ agreed Porfiry, without removing his eye from the side of the man’s head. ‘Which is why I did not trouble myself to say it.’
‘He must have been there all winter,’ said Ptitsyn. ‘Beneath the ice.’ His tone was pitying. He narrowed his eyes compassionately.
‘It surely made no difference to him,’ said Virginsky. ‘He was dead, after all.’
The young police officer’s brows dipped reproachfully.
Virginsky was unrepentant. ‘At least he is well preserved.’
Porfiry Petrovich straightened himself up with a grunt. He held a hand out to Virginsky to steady him as he got to his feet. The lumbar pains stayed with him. In fact, they had been with him for months now, settling themselves in over the winter. He had hoped that the warmer weather would see them off. But they gave no indication of going anywhere.
Porfiry was long past the age when he welcomed each new spring with unequivocal enthusiasm. Granted it was the return of life to the natural world. Rivers began to flow again. Trembling buds forced their way through the dwindling layers of snow to bask in the warmth of the waxing sun. According to conventional wisdom, the sap was rising in the boughs. But the truth was, Porfiry no longer believed in this rising sap. For him personally, each new spring marked only the passing of another year, and consequently the shortening of his remaining portion. And now it seemed he could not even count on it to dispel his aches and pains. The long winters, that in his youth had seemed to be endless, went by in the blink of an eye. He looked back on the winter just gone as he looked back on every moment of his life so far, with a pang of nostalgia.
He kept his eyes fixed on the man at his feet, as if he found the sight consoling. ‘I want a photograph taken. We will publicise the man’s face.’
‘Strange-looking fellow,’ adjudged Virginsky. ‘The white on his face, at his cheeks. . he doesn’t look quite human. More like a doll, or a mannequin.’
‘Adipocere,’ said Porfiry.
‘What?’
‘Adipocere. Or grave wax. It occurs in bodies that are exposed to moisture. The fatty tissues convert to. . well, basically, soap. The medical examiner may be able to calculate how long he has been in there based on the degree of conversion.’
‘But it makes identification difficult.’
‘Yes. However, there may be enough of the original form of his face remaining to prompt someone into coming forward. You will notice that in the areas that have not converted, the skin is disfigured by severe pockmarking. Furthermore, his eyes appear disproportionately small, do they not? Distinctively so, we might say. We can only hope that someone will be able to piece together these distinctive features, prompted perhaps by the disappearance of a friend or loved one.’
‘It would be difficult to love that,’ commented Virginsky.
‘Show some respect, Pavel Pavlovich. You will be dead yourself one day. I doubt it will be a pretty sight.’ The heat of Porfiry’s ill temper was genuine.
He turned away from the corpse and looked up. The sky was cornflower blue, an effortless, meaningless expanse of breathtaking colour. He sniffed the vernal air savagely. Spring changed the scent of the city; the thaw released the moisture from the waterways, and the breezes carried wafts of lilacs and bird cherry. But today it was all overpowered by the swampy smell emanating from the corpse. It brought to mind another powerful stench that would soon overwhelm the city. Porfiry wrinkled his nose and settled his gaze on Virginsky. ‘Dear God, it will soon be summer.’
‘But Porfiry Petrovich, the ice has only just begun to melt.’
‘Today the ice melts. Tomorrow the drains are stinking and the flies are back. You know how it is. It all comes around too quickly these days. A sign of getting old, I know. You don’t need to say it.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘So the ice melted and the body floated to the top? Is that how it was, Sergeant Ptitsyn?’ Porfiry demanded sharply.
‘Not exactly, your Excellency. A group of sailors swimming — ’
‘Swimming?’ Porfiry stared down at the water, which was still dotted with slabs of ice. ‘In that?’ He glanced incredulously over at a handful of men in naval uniforms, who were standing watchfully at a short distance. He was sensitive to their proprietorial manner, as if they considered their claim over the body greater than his.
‘Is it so different from you taking a cold plunge at the banya?’ wondered Virginsky.
Porfiry did not deign to answer, except to blink rapidly, as if the question was a piece of grit in his eye.
‘I have taken statements from the sailors,’ said Ptitsyn. ‘But I ordered them to remain, in case you wished to speak to them yourself.’
‘You did well,’ sighed Porfiry, as if it pained him to pay a compliment. ‘You men,’ he called out to the sailors. ‘Which of you discovered the body?’
The men scowled back, little inclined to answer. Then the youngest of them nodded hesitantly and broke away to approach Porfiry.
‘That would be me.’ He was glum but not hostile, but neither was he particularly respectful.
‘And you are?’
‘Apprentice Seaman Anatoly Ordynov.’
Porfiry took out an enamelled cigarette case and flicked it open towards Ordynov. The young sailor took a cigarette and allowed Porfiry to light it for him. Porfiry then lit his own and the two men smoked in silence for a while.
‘A nasty shock, I imagine, on a fine spring day?’ Porfiry ventured, conversationally.
The young sailor nodded, Right enough.
Porfiry read the name on the sailor’s cap tally. ‘You serve on the Peter the Great? A fine ship.’
The junior sailor gave the most minimal of nods as he inhaled.
‘The most modern ship in the Baltic fleet,’ remarked Porfiry.
‘The most modern ship in the world,’ corrected Ordynov. His pride was a fierce glimmer in his eye.